


Stranded

by GK7



Series: JJP short aus [14]
Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Crash Landing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Inspired by Cast Away, Islands, M/M, Mild Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romantic Comedy, Survival, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27454993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GK7/pseuds/GK7
Summary: Jaebeom finds himself seated in an airplane, next to the most annoying stranger he has ever met in his life. But when their plane crashes into the pacific ocean, this stranger might just be his only hope for survival.
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung
Series: JJP short aus [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773349
Comments: 22
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (My attempt at light-hearted humor and romance, since I've been working on a dark themed fic for the JJP Big bang)
> 
> Not beta'ed or revised but I wanted to post this before I chickened out yet again. Hope you guys like it. I know I have to update Ice & Fire but I'm feeling really inspired right now.
> 
> Someone tweeted about this and it reminded me of Jaebeom on Idol radio, saying he wouldn't want to be stranded on an island with Jinyoung because he'd called himself JB hunter earlier. Please link the tweet to me on twt if you find it. Thank you for the inspiration!

Jaebeom closed his eyes and felt the heady mix of exhaustion and discomfort take over his mind, lulled into an uncomfortable slumber by the whine of the airplane speeding against the slowly building thunderstorm outside and the soft humming of his seating partner - who had a surprisingly melodious, extremely stable and highly orgasmic singing voice... 

Wait, what? 

Jaebeom sat up in his seat abruptly and glanced at his partner who was already smiling at him amused, as if he knew what thought had just crossed Jaebeom's mind. It would be low-key creepy if he wasn't drop dead gorgeous and seemed like a Prince straight out of a romance drama. Jaebeom high-key wanted to put their divider up, a perk of traveling business class, but he resisted. He didn't want to be outright rude to a stranger for no reason. 

Wait, he had reason. Reasons in plural. 

Jaebeom turned away from the guy's toothy grin in irritation. For almost the entire flight, his seat partner had not spared one moment to infuriate him in every way possible. 

1\. Stealing his aisle seat, despite Jaebeom saying he had mild acrophobia and insisting that this was the only way to cure it. Okay granted, Jaebeom's original seat was, in fact, the window seat (thank you hairbrained best friend Yugyeom who booked it for him) but the guy should have atleast had the decency to pretend to think over it when Jaebeom asked him for an exchange with all the politeness he could muster. Instead, Jaebeom had been met with an immediate and final "Nope." in a surprisingly deep voice that contrasted inexplicably well with his cherubic face. Not even a sorry at the end to soften the blow, but a huge, smug grin tacked on at the end. 

2\. Constantly nudging Jaebeom's arm for the magazines in his rack despite his own rack being full. "I don't like Business Weekly" was the cheeky reply when Jaebeom tutted in consternation, as he picked out yet another magazine so the guy could rifle through it noisily, still too much of a coward to say no like the guy had - so easily and without any room for argument. The sixth time it happened, Jaebeom picked up the entire stack of magazines and dumped it on the guy's lap. Annoyingly enough, the guy let out a breathy chuckle instead of getting angry. 

3\. Pointed out a spelling error when Jaebeom tried to ignore him and doodle some lyrics into his diary instead. 

"Excuse me, but this is personal?" Jaebeom responded, his voice coming out whiny instead of angry like he'd meant to. He glared at the guy's amused face for good measure. But all he got back in return for his efforts was a tiny "so cute" as the stranger smiled back at him without fear. 

"I'm not cute!" Jaebeom snapped, which again sounded more like a whine than an angry retort. What was wrong with him? People usually found him intimidating, but this guy here was smiling at him like he was some cat playing with a ball of yarn. 

"Stop looking like a hunter who's trapped a rabbit, it's annoying!" Jaebeom whispered furiously. 

"But you are cute, just like a rabbit." the stranger grinned back. "Hunter...I like that." he added with a relish, giving Jaebeom a long, scrutinizing look that made him feel hot all over instead of being creeped out. Damn these good looking people. 

4\. He was hot as hell. There was no argument about it. This guy was hot, gorgeous, beautiful and every other synonym for handsome in the dictionary. Jaebeom was a song writer, yet he couldn't find words enough to describe exactly how and why he thought this guy was attractive to him. And this in turn was the most annoying thing about this man. 

5\. Another annoying thing was that this guy was freaking married. If the ring on his finger wasn't indication enough, his tiny whisper of "Daddy will be home soon baby..." as he said goodbye on his last call was a sure shot indicator. So why the hell was he out here flirting with Jaebeom, a complete stranger? Was he one of those bored with married life corporate types who had a different lover in every country they visited? 

Jaebeom didn't know why this last bit of information was annoying (or perhaps, he didn't want to know) but at the moment everything about this man was freaking annoying and he couldn't wait to land in Seoul so he could be rid of him. 

So imagine how acutely annoying it was when the the storm outside grew worse and the plane's engines died one by one over the next few minutes, sending them into a free fall towards the unforgiving depths of the Pacific ocean, only for Jaebeom to grab on to the first thing that he could hold on to, which was this annoying stranger's hand. 

Great, he was going to be annoyed by this annoyingly beautiful stranger even in death. 

Weirdly, his brain seemed to be scrambling around, latching on to the most mundane things instead of showing him a power point presentation of his life's biggest, most significant moments like it was supposed to do. The only thing it seemed to be concerned about as they plunged to their deaths was that he didn't even know his annoying companion's name. 

"My name is Jaebeom! You can call me JB for short!" he yelled, as they held on to each other for dear life. "What's yours?!" 

Inexplicably, the man smiled again, the adrenaline making Jaebeom's brain work so fast that he registered every beautiful detail - from the dimple on his cheek, the evening stubble already growing on on his face, the tiny mole on the upper lip that acted as a beauty mark (as if the guy needed it), to the creases at the corner of his eyes as they narrowed. 

"Hunter!" the man answered with a wink. "JB hunter." 

Jaebeom would have died of irritation right then if he wasn't already about to die, as they finally hit the dark, terrifying surface of the pacific ocean with a deafening crash. 

The stranger refused to let go of his hand until the very end. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the support and feedback guys. Let me know what you think! 💚💚

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW // D word 
> 
> Mention of the words "death" and "dying".

* * *

Jaebeom had a persistent itch in one nostril, but no matter how hard he scratched, it never went away. It didn't even feel like his finger was touching it. 

Because it wasn't. 

Jaebeom's eyes fluttered open but then closed immediately. The light falling into them was so bright it hurt. He could feel the burn on his face, now that he was rapidly regaining consciousness. 

He had no sense of time or place. Was this heaven? Surely, if he was in hell the heat would be a lot more intense and so would the pain in his body. He wanted to bring an arm up to shield his eyes and take a proper look around but somehow he still couldn't feel his limbs. All he felt was the flat surface underneath his body rocking gently, as if floating on water. 

Water. 

Ocean. 

Plane crash. 

Shit! 

Jaebeom forced his eyes open, wincing against the pain. He needed to see, had to see what had become of him. Why couldn't he move his body despite feeling every other sensation? Had he somehow been decapitated during the crash, like something straight out of Final Destination, the hollywood horror movie Yugyeom had forced him to watch under threat of a tickle attack? 

Jaebeom amused himself for a bit as his eyes adjusted, thinking about what Yugyeom would say if he could see him right now, just a floating head bobbing on water like an abandoned football. 

_"Thank God we finally got to fix your swollen head, Hyung."_

Yeah, that's something Yugyeom would definitely say. Atleast the lack of circulation hadn't decayed his brain cells yet, if he could remember his bestfriend slash younger brother slash the bane of his existence so clearly. What was it he'd read just yesterday in one of those " _did you know_ " articles? - " _The human head is sentient for quite sometime after it's been severed from the body."_

Well, if anyone was willing to interview a floating head anytime in the future, he'd be able to tell them that it wasn't all bullshit. Yay for science! 

He amused himself for another few minutes, imagining himself mounted on a pedestal giving a one hour Ted Talk about life as a human football. 

_"Hyung, that's fucking morbid."_ Yugyeom would say. 

Jaebeom chuckled at that quite a bit, imagining Yugyeom infront of a packed audience, removing a red silk cloth with flourish to reveal his grinning head while the audience screamed. 

Death wasn't so bad if you had a sense of humor, no matter how shitty it was. 

Suddenly, he heard a low grunt from somewhere below as something shifted in the place where his body was...or would have been. Next moment, he felt a huge weight being lifted off his phantom chest and found himself looking hazily into a pair of large, brown bambi eyes blinking up at him in equal confusion. While Jaebeom tried to make sense of what he was seeing, the look of confusion quickly turned to glee. 

"You're awake! Oh, thank God!" said a deep voice, a strange contrast to the child like excitement in its tone. There was a slight rasp to it that could only come from a parched throat or a heavy smoker. 

Jaebeom blinked once, twice, and finally he could see more clearly. The man's face, inches away from his own, seemed boyish, so much younger, almost child-like when the eyes weren't narrowed in the sultry, amused, 'come hither' look that Jaebeom remembered from the flight. His memory was coming back rapidly and he wasn't sure if it was a good thing. His eyes landed on the man's lips - chapped and dry skin almost hiding the faint mole on the upper lip, as if they hadn't seen water for days. 

Shit, they were both dead and this brat had followed him all the way to purgatory! Why the hell was God hell bent on punishing him for being a disbeliever? It wasn't the worst crime. Nothing like, say, kicking a kitten or calling a 26 year old healthy young man a "grandpa" for God's sake, like Yugyeom did to him. Now that was a crime worth atleast 700 years in the deepest pits of hell. 

"I thought I'd lost you..." the man ("JB hunter", Jaebeom remembered with irritation) continued. 

It was a weird thing to say, Jaebeom thought. It's not like JB hunter ever _had_ him in the first place. Nope, Jaebeom knew better than to give himself to a married man who called himself "daddy" or "JB hunter", thank you very much. 

He opened his mouth to say exactly that but all that came out of his throat was a barely audible croak. Great. Had he been re-incarnated as a frog for his sins?

Could JB hunter atleast tell him what was going on instead of acting like a widower who'd just found out his husband didn't die in the war after all?

There was some more shifting from down below and Jaebeom felt the surface under his phantom body tilt precariously before JB hunter stopped moving again. That's when Jaebeom realized why he couldn't move his limbs despite feeling everything. 

JB hunter had been using him as a body pillow. 

"...the fuck?" he croaked out. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I thought you weren't going to wake up so I sort of started crying but then I sort of fell asleep on your chest...or fainted...actually I don't know for sure...I'd been feeding you the last of the water and...oh shit! We're out of water!" 

"...hunh?" was all Jaebeom could manage. 

"We're out of drinking water! I fed you all the water from the storage because I didn't want you to accuse me of killing you by dehydration! I thought I could collect some if it rained again but we've had a dry spell for days...We're fucked." said JB hunter, his tone going low towards the end, a hint of resignation now coloring his features. 

He still hovered over Jaebeom, supporting himself on hands placed on either side of his head, but most of his weight had been taken off. Jaebeom could now feel his own limbs coming slowly back to life.

A life he owed to JB hunter, from what he could make out. 

Number 6 on his list of things that made JB hunter the most annoying person on earth. 

And now Jaebeom was stuck with him for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, to have and to hold, wait, they'd covered that part already... 

...till death them do part. 

Jaebeom can't help the shiver of fear run down his body at that last thought. Now that he realized that he'd indeed survived the plane crash, the reality of a slow, painful death became more real every moment. 

_"Well, that could happen too." Yugyeom would say with a shrug._

Jaebeom wished he could've hugged him one last time before leaving.

Or strangled him.

He was fine with either type of goodbyes. 

*

"I'm gonna catch one today. You see if I don't!" Jaebeom declared, rolling the sleeves of his sweater up with determination.

"That's exactly what you said yesterday." said JB hunter. 

He was sprawled out next to Jaebeom in the safety boat, dressed only in a green hoodie with his long legs sheathed in fitted back slacks stretched out infront of him, looking for all the world like he was still on vacation. Jaebeom hadn't really noticed what he'd been wearing during the flight, too focused on his annoyingly luscious mouth and the annoying words coming out of them at regular intervals. He was being annoying even now, his eyes going back to their crinkled, amused look, acting like they'd simply decided to take a boat out and starve to death together, like some especially dedicated star crossed lovers. 

The only indication of any discomfort JB hunter gave were his cracked lips that were bleeding in places and the palor of his skin, that worried Jaebeom a lot even if he didn't mention it. 

From what Jaebeom had gathered, he'd fed the majority of the rations in the safety boat's locker to Jaebeom in an attempt to keep him alive and Jaebeom could feel the truth of it. Though he was starving and thirsty himself, he had more energy than JB hunter, who'd given up on any movement after Jaebeom's fifty something failed attempt at finding any fish to catch yesterday. Jaebeom wished he'd given up on teasing him too, but sadly, you can't have everything in life. 

Besides, Jaebeom could tolerate atleast that much for a dying man. For some reason, the thought of JB hunter lying still and not annoying him every second of every day made his heart heavy...Nah, it was just a human thing. He'd feel sad about someone dying even if they weren't JB hunter, there were absolutely no unacknowledged feelings there. It was a completely normal, human emotion. Or so he told himself. 

They'd been in the water for four days and things were beginning to look more hopeless than they already were on the first day that Jaebeom had woken up, two days ago. 

Jaebeom dismissed the negative thought from his mind quickly. JB hunter had been alone and scared, but he hadn't given up on him. Jaebeom could, should return the favor, stay strong for them both. 

"I'm gonna catch one today, mark my words."

"Can you stop saying that?" JB hunter rasped. 

"Come on, I'm just trying to stay positive!" Jaebeom whined. 

"Not that. I meant, can you stop saying _Mark_?" 

"Why?" 

"It feels weird to hear my husband's name coming out of your mouth, especially in our current situation."

"Yeah, well...okay..." Jaebeom cleared his throat, not sure how else to respond. 

Atleast JB hunter had acknowledged that he had a husband. A husband he apparently didn't want to be reminded of. 

Jaebeom had been annoyed by the blatant flirting, he still was, but he really couldn't judge JB hunter after owing him his life. Perhaps, his husband was a first-rate douchebag and flirting with strangers was how JB hunter coped with things. Jaebeom didn't have the courage or will to confirm his suspicions though, JB hunter was forbidden to him ( _"You mean out of your league_." Yugyeom would smirk.). That was all he needed to know. 

"I know what you're thinking." said JB hunter in his raspy voice. 

"I'm not-" 

"It's not that I don't love him." JB hunter interrupted him in a rare show of frustration. "It's just this whole situation! I don't want to be tempted to end it all, thinking about him. I want to live, for as long as I can."

Wow. This Mark guy must really be the biggest douchebag to ever live on earth. To have such a confident, beautiful man (annoying yes, but beautiful) be in love with him but who considers death at the mere thought of him. 

Suddenly, JB hunter didn't seem as annoying anymore. He seemed...soft, vulnerable. Jaebeom felt a surge of protectiveness in his heart that he'd never felt for anyone other than his family and Yugyeom before. If Jaebeom ever made it back alive, this Mark guy was going to catch his Ilsan water fist first thing off the boat, no matter how weak it was. 

" _It's the thought that counts_." Yugyeom would say, with a sympathetic pat disguised as reassurance on his shoulder. 

JB hunter had his eyes closed by now, probably taking another nap. That's all his tired body could seem to manage lately. Jaebeom cast his eyes back to the water with a concerned frown on his face and finally, luck decided to favor them. He saw a school of fish swimming near the surface and his heart leapt with joy. 

They were going to live. 

He was tempted to use their flare gun but fortunately decided against it. It was sure to end in a disaster and JB hunter wouldn't let him live it down. Ever. He readied himself near the edge of the boat and as soon as a fish passed near enough, he plunged his hand into the freezing water. Ofcourse, the fish slipped right through his fingers. But he didn't lose heart. It didn't matter that he'd never gone fishing with his bare hands before but there was always a first time for everything. Besides, there were a lot more of the rainbow colored fish around and he was sure to catch atleast one.

He was proven right, as he finally managed to trap and hold a fish in his hands on his seventh or eight attempt (he'd lost count). However, as he straightened up quickly, whooping in triumph to gloat at JB hunter, the thrashing fish gave a massive thrust, leapt out of his hands and smacked him right in the face with its wet tail, before diving back into the water. 

Jaebeom could swear he heard the fish let out an evil laugh before it broke the surface and disappeared completely. 

Or maybe that was just JB hunter. 

For one glorious stunned moment, Jaebeom held on to the impossible hope that his companion hadn't seen what happened, that the laugh was just a figment of his humiliated imagination. But when he finally managed to brave a hasty glance in JB hunter's direction, sure enough, the man had an impish grin sitting wide on his face. 

"Oh don't mind me, please continue with whatever it is you were doing. It's quite entertaining." He grinned, less flirty and more boyish. Jaebeom felt his stomach lurch with an unrecognizable feeling along with irritation. 

"Fine! You wanna laugh so bad?Let's starve then, I bet it's gonna be fucking hilarious!" Jaebeom said, crossing his arms and settling down on the opposite side of the boat with his eyes closed.

"Oh I can take care of myself. You see, I, unlike you, grew up on an island. I can catch fish with my eyes closed city boy." 

Jaebeom's eyes flew open. 

"Then why didn't you just say so in the first place?" he asked angrily, uncrossing his arms and clenching his fists, ready to fight. 

"And miss all the fun? Don't think so. There's little room for entertainment here, incase you haven't noticed." JB hunter said with a shrug, more like a statement than teasing, reminding Jaebeom of Yugyeom more than ever. 

Okay forget the feeling of protectiveness. Jaebeom was back to being annoyed. 

"Do you think we're on vacation? We could die out here!"

"If I die, I give you permission to eat me in order to survive." JB hunter smiled fondly as if talking to a pet. 

Jaebeom ignored the strange lurch in his stomach again. 

"Shut up." was the weak reply he could manage as he settled back down grumpily. 

The man sighed in fond exasperation and finally managed to kneel after three failed attempts. Jaebeom had reached a hand out instinctively to help him but then retracted immediately at the answering smirk on JB hunters face. He crossed his arms again, his face turned away stubbornly while JB hunter tried to balance himself on his knees, still alert enough to catch JB hunter if he fell over the edge. 

"Just close your eyes for a bit and let me take care of the food. We must be getting nearer to land if we can see so many fish out here."

"What? Really?" Jaebeom turned back eagerly, all anger instantly forgotten. 

"No. I just pulled that out of my ass. Your reactions are really cute, Hyung." JB hunter chuckled. 

Suddenly, the thought of killing JB hunter with his own hands and then eating his annoying tongue so he would shut up forever seemed a lot more appealing. 

Besides, the guy had just called him "Hyung" out of nowhere. He seemed to have determined that Jaebeom was older than him for some reason. Which again reminded him of Yugyeom's grandpa jokes. 

The list of annoying things about JB hunter just kept growing. 

*

"Check in the storage box, there must be a lighter or matchsticks." JB hunter said. 

He'd already gutted the three fish he'd caught within just a few minutes, making a mess out of his already wet shirt that he'd used as a fishing net. Something Jaebeom hadn't thought to do himself, annoyingly enough. Lack of food really did interfere with your cognitive skills. Earlier, they'd found a small but sharp knife in their little locker and now Jaebeom rummaged in there again to find a lighter. 

He managed to find it just as JB hunter stretched his tired arms above his head with a loud, exhausted sigh. 

It was already pretty hard not to stare at JB hunter's recently shrunken but still well defined muscles and veined forearms (Jaebeom refused to acknowledge the dark pink nipples showing through his white, now translucent from being soaked, sleeveless undershirt.) but JB hunter seemed hell bent on making Jaebeom's newly celibate life even harder. 

" _Pun intended_." Yugyeom sniggered in his mind. 

"Here." Jaebeom said shortly, holding out the lighter with his eyes deliberately set on a point above JB hunter's shoulder. 

"You still haven't asked for my name." JB hunter sniggered, again reminding Jaebeom of Yugyeom. He missed home and JB hunter reminded him of home at every moment. 

Jaebeom added number 7 to the list of...you get the drift. He hoped this would be the end of it. Seven was a good number right? Lucky?

"We should get to know each other." JB hunter continued. 

"I don't want to." Jaebeom answered without thinking. 

He noticed something that looked a lot like disappointment flicker across JB hunter's face, but he dismissed it immediately as something irrelevant. 

Yes, he owed his life to JB hunter but the fact remained that JB hunter was married and liked to call himself "daddy". He was bad news and Jaebeom didn't want a sugar daddy to complicate his life. He was a song writer on the rise, he didn't have time for a rich, bored, married guy like JB hunter who seemed easily amused by everything Jaebeom did just because he was the only one available right now. 

He didn't want to be on someone's list of " _things to do when you know you're about to die_ ". JB hunter clearly loved his douchebag husband if he hadn't bothered to remove his expensive wedding ring before flirting with Jaebeom. He clearly wasn't looking for anything serious and Jaebeom was not going to be his pet, to be caressed and fondled, then abandoned. 

Hell no!

JB hunter seemed to have taken the hint, if one was to judge by the lack of amusement on his face now, and they spent the next half hour in relative silence, cutting the fish into bit sized pieces so they could roast it over the lighter. 

Or so Jaebeom thought. 

"Open your mouth, aaah..." JB hunter sang, holding a piece near Jaebeom's lips. 

Jaebeom jerked back instinctively. 

"I'm not a child! I can feed myself, thank you!" he said angrily. 

"You'll mess up the boat if I just hand it to you. It's hot." JB hunter insisted, unphased as he pushed the bite towards him again. 

"I can do it myself thanks. I'm an adult, I know how to eat without making a mess!" Jaebeom declared, pulling the piece out of JB hunter's fingers aggressively. 

And ofcourse he managed to immediately drop it to the bottom of the boat and made a whole mess trying to pick up the delicate flesh quickly.

"Are you done? Hold this properly now." JB hunter said, holding out another piece in exasperation, like a parent scolding their toddler. 

" _Daddy_..." Jaebeom remembered again with a sudden sinking feeling. Had he misinterpreted JB hunter's earlier phone conversation? Was he, in fact, a father of an actual, legitimate child? Had this Mark guy abandoned them? He couldn't even ask him after having declared his apparent disinterest so bluntly. 

The old feeling of protectiveness threatened to overcome his annoyance again. 

So Jaebeom did the first thing he could think of to hide his conflicting emotions. Instead of taking the piece from JB hunter with his fingers, like JB hunter evidently expected him to do, he closed his lips around it and pulled away with the piece in his mouth, ignoring the moment his lips touched JB hunters fingers accidentally. 

To say JB hunter was stunned was an understatement, as he sat frozen with his mouth slightly open and his now empty fingers suspended in the air for quite a long moment, watching Jaebeom chew and swallow. 

Jaebeom couldn't really bring himself to be bothered about that, as the burst of flavor from his first bite of what could be considered 'real food' in quite a while overwhelmed him completely. It was bland without seasoning and a bit painful as his mouth flooded with saliva, but he managed to savor every moment, groaning in pleasure with his eyes closed. It felt as good as an orgasm after hours of edging. 

JB hunter seemed to be thinking along the same lines. 

"You look like you're about to bust a nut. Would you like some privacy?" he asked. 

Jaebeom's eyes snapped open again and he found JB hunter looking at him with raised brows. 

Jaebeom was about to come up with a snarky response but suddenly, JB hunter was reaching out to wipe drool off the corner of his lips with a thumb and he lost his train of thought pretty quickly. 

"You're so messy." JB hunter chuckled, taking his hand away and bringing up another piece of roasted fish. 

This time, neither of them looked away as Jaebeom let JB hunter feed him the next couple of pieces. 

"You should have some now. You've been hungry for longer." Jaebeom said softly, picking up another piece off JB hunter's ruined shirt to roast.

He fed JB hunter most of the remaining pieces one by one, taking only a couple more bites himself. Returning the favor, not flirting back, he tried to tell himself. 

"Thank you Hyung." JB hunter said, his voice colored with more sincerity than he'd shown until now.

Jaebeom felt like they had progressed quite a bit in their non-friendship, become more comfortable. There was no denying the fact that JB hunter had saved his life at risk of his own, that he had cried like an innocent child when he thought Jaebeom was dying, that his relentless teasing had kept their panic at bay. 

And he found that he didn't mind so much anymore, especially with a partially filled stomach. So over the next half hour, he busied himself with cleaning the boat off any leftover bits of fish and then washed JB hunter's shirt in the ocean so he could dry it in the sun and wear it without much discomfort. 

The heat was getting less fierce as the afternoon wore off but they had another night of freezing cold to face and the one-man insulating blanket they'd found in the locker could only do so much to keep two grown men warm. 

"Hyung! Look!" JB hunter called out suddenly, his voice stronger after being fed, and colored with excitement. "I think I see it! Land! It's land!" 

Jaebeom merely hummed lazily, his eyes still closed. There were only so many times he could let himself be fooled by one of JB hunter's weird jokes, that Jaebeom would have actually found funny if he wasn't so busy being annoyed instead. 

Until he felt the first drop of rain on his cheek and opened his eyes to a rapidly greying sky almost touching his face and the water surrounding them. How had he not noticed the freezing air and increasing volume of wind knocking against the boat? The boat had been rocking sharper than before without them noticing.

He quickly followed JB hunter's pointer finger with his eyes and sure enough, he could see a faint, dark mass rising above the water, getting bigger as they neared. 

They'd found land! 

But his answering whoop of celebration was cut short suddenly by a flash of lightening right in between them and said mass of land, followed by the sound of thunder, louder than expected. 

He reached out instinctively to grab JB hunter's hand and met his scared gaze with a reassurance that he didn't feel himself. 

Could they cheat death together for the second time? 


End file.
